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Students grab a snack at the Koch Industries Lounge in the KU School of Business. A student group has filed a Kansas Open Records Act request to investigate the relationship the Koch brothers have with the school.
Group pursues University, Koch brothers link
MIRANDA DAVIS
@MirandaDavisUDK
The issue that started with 10 months of research and questions of transparency will soon come to fruition once the University produces a Kansas Open Records Act request to a group of University students.
The group has been pursuing information about the Koch brothers' relationship with the School of Business.
The students are members of Students for a Sustainable Future, a campus organization that organizes campaigns for social, environmental and economic issues. They expect to receive the documents in late October. Originally,
they filed a request in April and revised it in August. The University approved the request, but it came with a $1,800 price tag.
The students organized a petition and fundraiser, raised all the money and submitted the payment last Friday. In the group's KORA request, it asked for all documents about donations and associated restrictions by Koch family foundations, donations and associated restrictions contributed to Dr. Arthur Hall and the Center for Applied Economics and records of the hiring processes for Hall, Dr. Douglas A. Houston and Dr. Koleman Strumpf.
Schuyler Kraus, a senior from Allen, Texas, and president of Students for a
Sustainable Future, started looking into the Koch brothers' relationship with the University once she learned about the Koch brothers' contracts with schools like Florida State University and Clemson. Internal memos and emails at those schools indicated the Koch brothers had influence over hiring and curriculum.
"It really goes back to this question of, 'Does academia exist to churn out cogs to go into this economic wheel machine, to make it all work, or does academics exist totally separate from the dominant economic model,'" Kraus said. "Does it exist to question that?"
She knew the Koch brothers were from Wichita and wondered what kind of
influence, if any, they had at a university in their home
"There are so many coincidences that it warrants an investigation into what's on go."
SCHUYLER KRAUS President of Students for a Sustainable Future
state.
The students started researching all things Koch and found, among others things, $1.4 million in donations from the Kochs to the business school. The business school funds Hall's position, and Hall runs the Center for Applied
Economics, which was established with a donation from the Koch brothers, according to the op-ed piece written by Kraus and published in the Lawrence Journal-World.
"There are so many coincidences that it warrants an investigation into what's going on," Kraus said.
Neeli Bendapudi, dean of the business school, said while the school is grateful for the money from the Koch Foundation, it has also raised slightly under $70 million in the past three years, excluding Koch money.
Bendapudi said this is an issue of academic freedom and said she does not believe she, or any dean, has the right to limit what a professor researches. Bendapudi said
she hasn't received any complaints from business school students about Hall and said she believes his classroom teachings are unbiased.
"In the classroom, no matter who is funded and how, if you have a professor who says, 'I will punish you if you do not agree with me' or 'I'm using this classroom to advocate a particular point of view', then I think that's unacceptable and we would let them go." Bendapudi said
Bendapudi said in the three years she's been dean, students have come to her with complaints about different professors, but not one has been about Hall.
Edited by Ashley Peralta
Daisy Hill sees rise in parking citations
AMBER VANDEGRIFT
@AmberVandegrift
Construction has caused a change for student parking on Daisy Hill. Donna Hultine, director of KU Parking and Transit, said 1,359 parking tickets have been given on Daisy Hill and at the Lied Center between Aug. 1 and Sept. 29 this year, which is more than 100 more than last year at the same time.
Hultine said Daisy Hill has lost about 600 parking spaces due to the construction of the new residence hall to replace McCollum Hall. The 300E lot by the Lied Center has provided overflow parking to make up for the lost spaces.
"Section E of the Lied Center lot is designated as a DF (Daisy Field) lot," Hultine said. "It's for DF permits, and it's actually always been a DF lot. Even before the Lied Center was built, there was a parking lot on that side of the bridge that was for the residence halls, so we've sort of claimed that for housing."
Since many Daisy Hill residents have to park in 300E, Hultine said some students have even purchased yellow permits
instead of Daisy Field ones, which has caused some confusion. Hultine said the Lied Center parking lot, except 300E, is closed from 4-6 a.m., even for vehicles with a yellow permit.
"If it's a no valid permit ticket, and if it's a wrong zone ticket, like ... if someone parks in the staff area at the beginning of the year, if they take that ticket forgiveness quiz, those can all be forgiven, they can all be canceled, but we only cancel one per person. It has to be your first ticket,"
"The parking commission created a rule last year that prohibits overnight parking at the Lied Center lot, except 300E, because the Lied Center still has to have that parking lot for nighttime performances," Hultine said.
Hultine said most tickets are written for no valid permit or wrong zone, which are generally fined $25 each, but she said some students take the opportunity to get their tickets forgiven. Hultine said 220 tickets have been canceled between Aug. 1 and Sept. 29 this year, which is fewer than this time last year.
SEE HILL PAGE 2
AARON GROENE/KANSAN
The University of Kansas and KU Endowment unveil a new historical marker for the February Sisters on Tuesday at Crawford Community Center, 1346 Louisiana St.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
2 BOOK CLUB
See what the University's new book club is reading for its first meeting this week.
4 VICTIM BLAMING
“It’s never someone's responsibility to avoid being assaulted.” SUSAN MCCLANNAHAN
5 HAWKTOBERFEST Third annual event will teach guests the science of beer.
7 DAILY DEBATE
Who should be the leading candidate for Kansas football head coach?
IOA drafts sexual assault survey
MCKENNA HARFORD
@McKennaHarford
The Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access has drafted a 2014 climate survey, which gathers information from students about sexual assault on campus, to be reviewed by a variety of campus groups and administration before it's released this fall.
The surveys are emailed to all KU email addresses. Jane McQueeny, executive director of IOA, said the goal is to
CLASSIFIEDS 9
CROSSWORD 6
CRYPTOQJIPS 6
OPINION 4
receive responses from 2,000 students, which would be more than twice the amount from 2013 and almost four times the amount from 2012.
"Ifwehadagreaterpercentage ofstudentpopulation,itwould probablybeevienstronger in terms of our ability to draw conclusions,"McQueeny said.
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This year, the climate surveys will include open-ended questions and questions about the current procedures, including those involving the Office of Student Affairs and
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sexual assault training. It will also include many questions from the Not Alone campaign, which was established by the White House in January to eliminate sexual assault on campus.
"[The task force] is going to look holistically and see what the survey responses say," said Angela Murphy, co-chair of the sexual assault task force and graduate student. "Then we are going to compare it to national rates and to our peer institutions."
Previous climate surveys asked a variety of questions, including questions gauging student knowledge on policies and asking about reporting and reasons for not reporting. Information from the surveys about sexual harassment involving alcohol and bystander actions have been previously used to improve sexual assault training.
nless stated otherwise, © 2014 The University Daily Kansar
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